CharisMatters

Don’t Touch That Dial! Web Radio Station’s a Mouse-Click Away

No need for PowerZone Radio (PZR) to bounce its radio
signals through the Earth’s atmosphere to reach the world with a radical
Christian message.

Station founder Paul Russell, 34, and staff disc jockeys Melanie McInnis, 20; Jesse Amalfitano, 23;

and Ricky Keefer, 21, are sending their radio waves across the Internet at www.powerzoneradio.com. They launched the station as an extension to Russell’s Military Ministry Network (www.militaryministry.com).

“This isn’t your mother’s radio station,” a voice booms as you open the Web site. Radical Christian music–dance, rap, rock, punk and more–blares through your computer speakers, and DJs testify in between blocks of mostly uninterrupted “netplay.”

The station’s audience is about 1,000 listeners a month. But PZR is heard on military bases worldwide and is penetrating high school and college campuses from its Orlando, Fla., base.

A teacher in a Florida public high school plays PZR daily to her class of 30 students. A listener in Hawaii loves to blast PZR down the street when he works on his Jeep. Marines in a Pensacola, Fla.,
barracks play PZR at night after work.

And a church in North Carolina plays PZR to its members regularly and has since decided to become regular financial supporters. “And they’re all in their 40s,” Russell said.

McInnis attributes PZR’s success to combining powerful music with the power of the gospel. “So many nonbelievers have a view of Christendom as being boring. We’re here to tell you that there isn’t just salvation in Jesus Christ, but also liberty and excitement.”

Military listeners, Russell said, find solace and peace from the broadcasts because many face loneliness and other hardships during deployments.

“This is a lifeline to them in a language they understand. They find it very encouraging.” –Billy Bruce

Intercessors Claim Coast of Malibu

A team of three dozen prayer warriors spread out along 23 miles of coastline in Malibu, Calif., on Sep. 23 to claim a region that is best known for Hollywood glamour and greed.

The intercessors were members of Malibu Vineyard Fellowship. One group walked along every inch of the territory. A second crew asked God to bless the bicyclists who curiously looked on. Another group prayed within shouting distance

of the home of Barbra Streisand and husband James Brolin.

“I felt a compassion from the Lord for the people there,” said Doug Wasson, 24, who co-leads Malibu Vineyard’s outreach to nearby Pepperdine University.

“Where the souls of our feet tread, God can stake a claim,” Wasson said.

–Steve Lawson

Gift Catalog Sells Hope At Christmas

Christmas is upon us, as is the madness of finding suitable gifts for our loved ones. Amid all the shopping frenzy and reckless spending is an inner cry for the true meaning of Christmas–which seems to get lost in the holiday shuffle.

World Relief has devised a program that enables believers to give gifts that bring back that true meaning–God’s
sacrifice for mankind. The Catalogue of Hope gives shoppers the opportunity literally to help the world’s needy with a purchase.

Those who browse the catalog will learn of the severe challenges millions who live in distant lands face. With your “purchase,” you receive a gift card to send to your loved ones that describes the particular gift purchased in their honor.

Fight AIDS in Africa, hunger in Liberia, or clothe children in Kosovo.

In Kosovo, spend $50 to help a family receive a LifeLoan to launch an income generating business that will help feed and clothe their children. In Africa, you can spend $10 to battle AIDS. The donation goes for providing educational materials to teach biblical principles of marriage and AIDS prevention.

To receive World Relief’s Catalogue of Hope, call (800) 535-5433, or visit the organization’s Web site at www.worldrelief.org.

–Billy Bruce

Irish Sounds Warm Chilly Hearts on British Isle

It was an Irishman, St. Aidan, who evangelized the English in the seventh century from his base on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. How fitting that another man from the Emerald Isle–Sammy Horner–should open a Celtic festival there, and Russ Parker, a Christian leader of Irish descent, should draw the event to a close one week later.

Horner, a modern pioneer of “Celtic praise,” brought his band The Electrics to Lindisfarne for the first event of “The Saints Uprising.” They warmed a few hearts on a misty evening by performing their inimitable blend of Irish-Scottish music and rock ‘n’ roll.

Visitors came from across Great Britain–and from as far away as Belgium, Germany and America–to the tiny tidal isle, known as England’s “cradle of Christianity,” for a week of singers, artists and poets. In ancient times their forefathers of faith crossed the wet sands at low tide via the Pilgrim’s Way–still marked out with wooden poles. But 21st-century pilgrims use a modern causeway to reach the island, located off the northeast coast.

There was a special service on St. Aidan’s Day on Aug. 31. Worshipers gave thanks for the humble Irish missionary who became an “apostle to the English.” The week ended with workshops and a service on “healing the land.”

–Clive Price in England

Arabs Across Middle East Flock to Hear Gospel in
Amman, Jordan

A history-making outreach into the Arab world by evangelist Morris Cerullo drew more than 2,000 people from Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations to September’s Middle East School of Ministry in Amman, Jordan.

The Jordanian government was so cooperative that Cerullo plans to return to Jordan this month to produce a one-hour prime-time “New Millennium” Christmas special titled “God’s Master Plan of the Ages,” which will be broadcast worldwide during Christmas week.

Cerullo credited strategic prayer as the miracle ingredient that gave him favor with King Abdullah II and the Jordanian government. Cerullo met with King Abdullah in February at the royal palace in Amman.

“Several months prior to [September’s school], thousands of intercessors were mobilized to pray and fast,” Cerullo said. “United, intensive prayer was going up from such remote places as Burma, where more than 5,000 intercessors and 238 churches were fasting and praying.”

For the September event, the Jordanian government relaxed visa requirements, enabling as many as 2,200 people to attend from Israel, Bahrain, Sudan, Syria, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Authority. Cerullo’s ministry sponsored the hotel and meal costs for every delegate in attendance at the Amman school.

“This was the greatest, most historic international school of ministry we have been privileged to conduct in 53 years of ministry,” Cerullo said.

–Billy Bruce

THE DECEMBER LIST

No. 1 Christian hardback: He Chose the Nails, Max Lucado (Word)

No. 1 paperback: The Power of a Praying Wife, Stormie Omartian (Harvest House)

No. 1 fiction book (paperback): The Redemption of Sarah Cain, Beverly Lewis (Bethany House)

No. 1 CD: Mountain High Valley Low, Yolanda Adams (Elektra)